


Closer and Closerer

by Allthecircles



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:27:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28801302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allthecircles/pseuds/Allthecircles
Summary: In which Oliver Queen discovers that the universe is more invested in his survival than he thought it was, that there is more than one way to right his father's wrongs and that sometimes, the best answer is to hold people closer.
Relationships: Moira Queen/Walter Steele, Oliver Queen/Original Female Character(s) of Color, Roy Harper/Thea Queen
Kudos: 1





	Closer and Closerer

**Author's Note:**

> I am writing this fic because I HATED the ending of Arrow and Oliver Jonas Queen deserves better. Also, this is at least a partial result of a Benadryl-induced dream I had last night in which the Monitor made some very compelling arguments and quiche was eaten. Also also, this fic is heavily inspired by 'I Scream and No Sound Comes Out' by laxit21 here on Ao3, so if you haven't watched that, go ahead and get into it! Much of the character decisions I make in this fic are inspired by that fic so I want to offer a huge THANK YOU to that author for posting that amazing story.

Every single lunge sent _agony_ coursing through him, but Oliver couldn't stop. There was maybe minutes to spare before he missed his window. Every bruise he'd ever had lit up like dancing flames across his skin and he stifled tears as he ran, jumping from rock to rock, ignoring every pebble and twig that broke his skin because he was finally _finally_ going home.  
He'd just made it to the pack Anatoly had given him, had just pulled it from its hiding place when he heard it. A scream. Oliver froze. Over the blood rushing in his ears and the pound of his heart against his ribcage, another high-pitched scream cut through the air. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach as his eyes searched the trees around him. That was a woman's voice. The island was supposed to be _deserted_. Did Kovar bring more people with him? Were there more people laying in wait to stop him? Was this a trap?  
The shout again, and this time Oliver felt like someone had squeezed all the air from his lungs. _Oliver! Oliver!_ She was calling for him. This had to be Kovar, but _how?_  
She was crashing through the trees, stumbling, shouting his name - she was getting closer, and he was almost sure she was alone. But what if she wasn't?  
Making a split second decision, he dropped the pack on the rock he stood on and hid himself behind a tree. He would decide what to do about her once he saw if she was alone, or a trap.   
Noisily, she burst through the trees, and Oliver sucked in a breath. He'd seen her at the Shadowspire camp only once, and when she'd disappeared he just figured she'd been killed. Her feet were a complete mess, one poorly bandaged and bleeding heavily, leaving bloody footprints on the rock as she limped toward the pack, chest heaving.   
But where had she been?   
There was no way for her to have survived the collapse of the camp if she'd been there, and if Reiter had been holding her somewhere else, then surely he would have killed her on his quest for souls to power the totem. _How the hell had she survived?_

There were about seventy-three confusing things about the current situation but if there was _one thing_ she knew for sure right then it was that she needed to find Oliver Queen before he made it off the island. She wasn't quite sure _how_ she knew that today was the day or how she immediately knew where she was, but she also didn't know how she'd even made it to this universe so really she would ask those unimportant questions later. Right now, she was on _Lian Yu_ in clothing she didn't recognize but in a body that told her it needed water and rest like two weeks ago and the hard, cold truth that she had seconds to find Oliver before she was stuck on this island alone.   
So she ran. Three minutes in she somehow knew that she was going the wrong direction and turned, and the first twig broke through the skin at her instep. She screamed. Stabbing pain lanced up through her leg and she knew she wasn't going to be able to run on that. She looked down and whimpered. It was less a twig and more a stabby chunk of tree and how the hell didn't she see that? Not stopping to think about it she reached down and yanked it out, her vision blanking for a second before she righted herself, screaming out as the open wound found leaves and twigs to replace it with. _Find Oliver. Get off the island. Focus._ Blinking through tears, she tore the sleeve off her threadbare shirt, used it to wipe away the debris she could before tying it around her foot. That would have to do. She would be slower now, on top of feeling like soggy paper left out to dry, but maybe she could get him to come to her. "Oliver!" She hobbled through the trees, hop-running to avoid putting too much pressure on her injured foot. "Oliver!"  
It wasn't long till she made it to a section of trees that looked familiar, with huge stones arranged in a manner one could almost call intentional and for a moment, the sea, with its pale grey sky cousin, spread out before her, and in the distance, a ship breaking black against the horizon.   
True panic gripped her, pain forgotten, and she sprinted over the rocks, down to the forest floor proper, screaming for him again. "Oliver!" She couldn't be left on this island. There was nothing deserted about it, clearly, and if the people who had shown up here after Oliver had left were any indication she didn't want to be caught by any of them. And that was without counting the A.R.G.U.S. prison or psycho Malcolm Merlyn or Adrian freaking Chase.   
Finally, finally, another clearing came into view, a camo backpack she recognized sitting out in plain sight. She limped forward, eyes scanning the trees as she heaved. He couldn't be far. This pack held everything he needed to sell his 'castaway' look, and with moments to spare neither of them could afford to play hide and seek.   
"I know you're here, and honestly, I don't blame you for being suspicious. But that ship Anatoly promised is out on the horizon, so you should really get the bonfire lit before we talk." A soft snap sounded and she whirled, barely stifling a scream because _Oliver freaking Queen_ was _right. there_. towering over her with his height and shaggy hair. His eyes bore into her with pure suspicion and she couldn't have moved away if she'd wanted to. "Please don't kill me. I obviously can't hurt you and I'm in no condition to try and fight you, so if you light the bonfire that'll give me enough time to explain and you enough time to change. Okay?"  
Oliver stared at her for a moment longer before he moved, stooping to pick up his backpack before running off to the bonfire he'd set up on the coast, his mind racing all the while. What. the. _hell._ He had been almost sure he was hallucinating, except he'd smelt the dried sweat and blood as he'd stood over her, felt the heat coming off her skin like sitting in front of a fireplace. She was quite possibly running a fever, which, if she was real and not a very convincing figment of his Red Death-inflammed imagination, was not good.   
He nocked the flaming arrow and let it fly into the pyre, watched it burst into flame, and waited. He could see the ship, but would it be too late? Would they be able to turn in time? Seconds ticked by that felt like hours. Oliver stared at the ship, praying, wishing, hoping it would turn. _Please._ This was his one chance. There would be no one coming looking for him after this. The next people to come to the island would probably kill him and he didn't want to go out that way. He didn't want to die here on the island.   
A sharp, low tone cut the air, and Oliver released the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. They'd seen him. They were coming. He was going _home_.   
"Oh thank _God_." He spun around at the soft voice, arrow nocked and aimed in a second. The woman sagged against a tree a few feet away, eyes closed in relief, a fresh scratch bleeding along her neck. "I was so scared for a minute. I thought we'd be stuck here."  
He watched her for a moment, watched her brace herself to move, the lines of her face tensing as she swiveled her head down to look at her feet, and made a decision. He lowered his bow, and pulled his quiver off over his head. Those would go into the chest in a moment, once he got some answers. "Who are you?"  
She looked up at him from where she'd been gauging the distance between the tree she leaned on and the nearest boulder. "I'm actually not sure how to answer that, to be honest."  
"Try."  
She looked back at the boulder and sighed. "Yeah, okay." Taking a deep breath, she took one giant hop, and faltered. Oliver saw it before it happened. In two quick strides he made it to her in time to catch her elbow before she hit the ground, and in one, two moves he'd moved her to the boulder and elevated her foot. The entire bottom of the cloth was dark with blood. Her eyes rolled wildly beneath half-lowered lids as she settled, and Oliver hovered, feeling a wave of concern. Was she even going to make it till the ship got here? "Sorry about that," she mumbled, still swaying slightly. "I think I lost more blood than I should have."  
"How did you survive?" Her eyes popped open at that, dark brown peering up at him out of a greying brown face. He was concerned, yes, but he also got the impression she was considering what to say. "Do not lie to me. I will _leave_ you here if you lie to me."  
She shook her head before he finished speaking. "No, that's not what I'm doing. I'm literally trying to figure out how I got here." She pressed her eyes shut. "Maybe I should start at the beginning."   
Oliver took a deep breath, fighting against the wave of irritation. They didn't have _time_ for her to start at the beginning.   
"You should change, and I'll try to make this make sense, alright?"  
He didn't exactly trust her ability to stay upright at the moment, but he didn't have much of a choice, either. The ship drew closer, may even send out a smaller boat in minutes, and he needed to know how much trouble she was going to cause him later. "Fine." He moved away, pulling the trunk out from under a bed of leaves and reaching for his quiver. "Start talking."  
"Yeah, okay. I promise I'm not lying so please don't shoot me. I'm from a universe where your life for the last five and the next 7 years is a tv show that ended in an absolute crap way and the Monitor, who took you away from your halfway happily ever after and showed you that everything you'd done for the city made next to no difference, came to me in a dream and told me to fix it and I woke up here on Lian Yu. With you." She could tell by the look on his face that this was the last thing he'd expected to hear. His mouth moved, and he fell back from his crouch in front of his trunk onto his butt and it was only the pain and wooziness that kept her from giggling. "That's why the Russians called you an American puppy. That cuteness, right there." She watched his eyebrows furrow and hurried on. Over his shoulder, she could see a smaller boat being lowered down the side of the ship come to rescue them. "I swear on your Bratva tattoo that I'm not lying, but this is also very confusing because I remember your show and the dream with the Monitor but I don't remember anything about my life or who I was before that, and at the same time _this body has memories._ I can remember being taken from the field by one of Reiter's men then taken to his tent and I'm pretty sure I remember him killing me and other things I _shouldn't remember_ because _it wasn't me_ but you need to put on that fake beard and get out of that shirt because the boat is coming right now and we don't have much time." He turned to look over his shoulder, then back at her, the shock widening his eyes and brightening the blue. "I swear, I will tell you as much as I can on the boat, they don't speak English, and we have a good chunk of travel to go between here and Starling City, but I need you to trust me. I swear that I am only here to help you right your father's wrongs and not get screwed over in the process." She held his gaze, trying to put as much sincerity and trustworthiness in it as possible. "Please."

He didn't answer except to pick up his pack and scramble into the bushes. If someone had asked him, he'd tell them plainly that he couldn't have answered. There were no words good enough to respond to the absolute bombshell she'd just dropped on him. Nevermind that it was, frankly, quite possible for her to have come back from the dead with all he'd seen in the last five years, but the fact that she knew what his father had said to him when there was _no possible way_ for her to have known that. He couldn't wrap his head around the tv show of his life part, but that was fine. They could talk about that later.

He quickly donned the disguise Anatoly had packed for him before moving back onto the rock to stuff the bag into the trunk.

With sharp, quick movements he made it down to the beach minutes before the men in the boat made landfall, dropping the trunk on the dark, rocky sand. He met their eyes briefly across the distance before he turned and ran back up the rocks. As much as his body physically pained him and his brain still skittered around the frankly impossible woman now looking up at him, there was a fizzy, impenetrable bubble of joy in his chest. He was getting off the island. He was going home. And he wasn't alone.   
"I'm gonna pick you up, okay." She watched him for a moment, apprehension wrinkling her forehead, before she nodded. He moved to slide a hand under her knees, one arm around her waist, and stood. She weighed less than he thought she should, but she was solid and just a bit too hot against him. His scars all twinged in protest, every single one, but he was slightly distracted by the weight of her head against where his arm met his shoulder, the way her hands fisted in the stiff fabric of Yao Fe's hood, one under his chest, the other against the small of his back. She didn't speak, but he did feel her stiffen when he turned toward the uneven rocks. "You're okay. I got you."  
"You would say that. A key aspect of your character is your inherent goodness. But I'm pretty sure I'm the one who's supposed to be reassuring you."  
They'd reached the top of the rock formation he'd more or less used as a staircase. The two men from the ship looked up at them, speaking back and forth in rapid Mandarin. Oliver felt the first smile in a while creep across his face. He was going home. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get there." He adjusted his grip on her, then made his first jump.   
A startled _'Eeep!'_ was pressed into his chest, right above the cuts the Bratva brothers gave him, and Oliver had to fight a grin, despite the pain. She'd turned her face into his chest, hands clenched tight in the tunic. "You okay?" He didn't manage to keep all of the laugh out of his voice.   
One slightly bloodshot eye emerged from where her face was smooshed against his chest, glaring. "Shut up."  
With a snort, he gripped her tighter and made his way down to the beach. The men seemed to assume he didn't speak Mandarin and were gesturing toward the smaller boat anxiously. He nodded, turning to try and grab the trunk, but one of them picked it up and practically ran back through the shallow water to the boat. He could understand their desire to get away from the island as quickly as possible. He waded through the surf and settled the woman in the boat, then hauled himself up. In minutes they were pulling away from the island, and Oliver could barely hold back tears.   
He was finished. It was done. He was finally going home. He couldn't wait to see his family. To see Thea, and his mother. He couldn't wait to see Laurel. Just to see her. He knew she should never forgive him for sleeping with her sister, but he'd staked so much of his survival on just _seeing_ her again that he needed to, just once, even if only to apologize and never darken her doorstep again.   
From the small boat, to the ship, and then before long he sat on a crab trap wrapped in a smelly blanket, watching _Pergatory_ get smaller and smaller. The woman, whose name he still didn't know, sat next to him in silence, seeming both as invested in the moment as he was and staying to support him. It occurred to him, as he sat watching the edges of the island fade into the fog, that if she was right and she'd watched him for the last five years then she knew everything, what he'd done, what had been done to him, where he'd been and the people he'd lost. And she wanted to help him 'not get screwed over'. A wave of gratitude washed through him so strong he had to blink away tears. He wasn't alone. There was at least one person he wouldn't have to hide a piece of himself from, at least one person who could fully see him, who didn't seem to care what type of monster he was. He could head back to Starling City and have someone in his corner as he tried to do what his father wanted, to right his wrongs. It may very well be he'd have to change his methods; she'd made it sound like what he'd done hadn't made much of a difference, but he was open to that, he found. He guessed it had to do with her whole impossibleness, or the fact that she knew he'd killed people and didn't seem bothered, or the fact that she seemed so very much in his corner. He would listen to her suggestions. He could extend himself that much.   
"What's your name, anyway?" he asked. The island had long since faded away, the fisherman cooped up in the cabin of the ship, presumably to stay away from their 'bad juju'.   
Her mouth opened, then her brows furrowed, and when she looked at him there was something like fear in her eyes. "That...is a very good question."  
Honestly, Oliver felt like he should have expected that. She'd said she didn't remember anything about her life before, and if she had had a psychotic break from all she'd endured on the island, why would she remember her name? Although, honestly, he had to admit that he was pretty good at spotting a liar, and she hadn't lied to him since she burst out of the tree-line back on the island. Plus, she looked like she was starting to freak out a bit. "You look like a 'Mina'."  
Slightly damp eyes turned back to him. "Aminah?"  
"That's even better. Aminah. That's what we'll call you, until you remember. You like that?"  
She hid her face in her blanket for a moment, but nodded. "Yeah, okay." She turned back to him, eyes damp. "Aminah what?"  
"You can choose that part. You can choose who you want to be here. In this universe." He'd meant it to be on the nose, a slight jab about the universe thing, to distract her from her thoughts and maybe explain herself a bit more, but she just nodded. Oliver supposed it was a big deal, whether any other part of her story was true or not. Not remembering your own name and then choosing another one would be enough to stymie just about anyone. Oliver left her to her thoughts, content to watch the sea ripple out behind the boat, taking him closer and closer to home. 

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic I play around with the 'fan gets inserted into canon' trope I've seen in other fandoms, and honestly, I don't know how this is going to go. There is going to be some pretty blatant unreliable narrator here because Aminah doesn't have a problem with just offing the characters who made Oliver's life hell over the seven seasons, and they never mention it in the show but Oliver had some pretty traumatic experiences and it is impossible for his to have made it back to Starling city, much less gone through the full 7 seasons, without exhibiting some type of trauma response (outside of that one incident with his mum in season 1). So I am going to do my best to inject some realism into this fic regarding that. 
> 
> Also, this is not a Olicity fanfic. I love Felicity as a character, but I can honestly say I hated everything about their relationship after the breakup over William. Every. single. thing. And I honestly think she could have been happier with someone else, someone who didn't raise her blood pressure to dangerous levels by the simple act of existing. And I think Oliver could have either done the 'lone caveman' thing well enough or he could have been with someone who wouldn't have fought him so hard on so many things for so long. I get that they worked well together most of the time and that Felicity's pep talks got him out of many funks, but overall, the relationship didn't win any awards for healthiness. 
> 
> I would love your reviews on this! Is it trash? Should I continue? Do you want to predict what happens next chapter? I'd love to hear it.
> 
> Also also, I am super interested in a beta reader or someone to bounce ideas off of for this fic. As well as any of my other fics. I miss the collaborative aspect of fanfic writing from way back when I wrote Severus-adopts-Harry HP fanfic. If anyone is interested, let me know!


End file.
